09-21-2023, 06:37 AM
(This post was last modified: 09-22-2023, 10:39 AM by lemonoppy. Edited 3 times in total.)
The Pro Bowl formula currently takes pancakes and sacks allowed into consideration. Which is good, but doesn't really consider everything. Of course, we can't consider everything, but we can at least count a few other things that the formula ignores.
Namely, penalties, and how that affects the average net yards per play that each lineman is involved in.
First we need to lay some ground work. I don't want to analyse every lineman for this, so I'm going to impose reasonable cutoffs to try and isolate a top ten.
My criteria are as follows:
Minimum 100 pancakes,
Either more than 1 pancake every ten plays, or fewer than 2 sacks allowed.
My logic being that this should give me offensive linemen with scores around 800 or better according to the original Pro Bowl formula. Considering that, at a glance, the best OL each season score somewhere in the region of 1100-1300 (which is around 120-130 pancakes, and 0-1 sacks allowed), on roughly 1200 plays, this seems like a reasonable cutoff point. As far as I can tell, only two players were not in my list who scored over 800, for what it's worth: Raya Ho'opa'i and Pan Cakes.
I was left with a list of nine.
The other bit of groundwork we need to do is figure out how many yards per play the average ISFL offense accumulated. Total number of plays across all quarterbacks -- and thus, a reasonable assumption for the total number of plays in the league this past season -- is 15,984. Total run yards plus total passing yards is total yardage for the league. Divided by our number of plays, we get a figure of a little over 5.1. Cool.
Now back to our offensive linemen. To really know whether the right guys got the call, we established that we need to consider penalties; which as far as I know, are not included in total yardage per player. The total number of penalties committed by all offensive players in the league -- which admittedly may not be an accurate figure, since sometimes a penalty isn't related to one player; but we work with what we have -- is 394, for a total of 3,168 yards. This works out to around 0.2 penalty yards per play (again using our previous measure of 15,984 plays). Applying a loss of 0.2 yards to our average yards per play would give us an average net yards per play of 4.9; we can use that to compare each lineman against the average.
Assuming every play an offensive lineman is involved in yields 5 yards (because rounding is easier), we can see that a player with more penalties will yield fewer yards per play. This does not bode well for Blacksmith Andre or Remi Musgrave-Smythe...
However, not all offenses are equal. Lets compare the estimated yards per play for their teams. We actually have this in the stats sheet, in the form of AY/A (Adjusted Yards per Attempt) on the Quarterbacks tab.
Some of you are pointing out that this isn't fair because the AY/A value depends on the quality of the offense. True. But we're not going to look at raw values; we're going to see how much that value changes due to the direct involvement of each lineman on an average play for that offense.
Since I can't specify exactly which plays each lineman was involved in, we're going to assume every lineman was involved in every offensive play their team had -- thus we are only using the number of plays by each quarterback as the base here. I'm pretty sure the actual numbers for the offensive linemen include special teams etc, but we're ignoring that for the purposes of this analysis.
Now let's apply these as a score to the initial score values as produced by the pro bowl formula: (pancakes * 10) - (sacks allowed * 100)
So let's say 5, for the leaguewide average offensive yards per play, multiplied by (1-NegativeRatio), multiplied by number of plays. That gives us an estimate of total yards gained with each lineman in the "average" league offense. Then let's scale that to the pro bowl formula. Considering that there are roughly 0.3 pancakes per play (5,564 total pancakes on 15,984 plays), and they're worth 10 points each, lets scale yardage to be similarly valuable based on how often it happens. We've already estimated roughly 5 yards per play, so to keep the same ratio, we need to say (10/(5/0.3)).
To quickly explain this: 5/0.3 compares the frequencies of each event; turns out that yards are 16 2/3 times more common than pancakes. So then we divide those ten points (per pancake) by that 16 2/3 to get how many points a single offensive yard should be worth if we assume pancakes and yards are equally valuable
(side note: they're not, but let's not get into that; pancakes are probably worth more than a single yard on average, but it's not really possible to calculate this. As a comparison point though, a sack is probably worth an average of negative six yards or thereabouts, so that tallies with our 0.6 pts per yard value at least).
Anyway, that gives us a value of 0.6 points per offensive yard.
So our yardage adjustment formula is: (5 * (1 - PenaltyYardRatio) * NumberOfPlays) * 0.6
If we plug that into our pro bowl scoring formula, we get the following final ranking:
Now, the ten linemen who made the Pro Bowl were:
ASFC: Donatello McTurtle, Beeg Beeg Yoshi Jr., Fortified Fridge, Blacksmith Andre, and Brandon Mason
NSFC: Yummy HotDogPie, Troy Barnes, Dusty Wilson, Bengal Tigerheart, and Remi Musgrave-Smythe
We can disregard the four interior guys (McTurtle, Yoshi Jr, HotDogPie, and Barnes) due to how sim stats work, and the fact I didn't actually separate guards/centers from tackles when doing my calculations.
Of the remaining names, all six ranked in the top nine I identified earlier. When splitting by conference, the top three in the ASFC were all selected, though Swantavius Payne may have had a slight case for selection over Brandon Mason by virtue of costing his team fewer yards via penalties.
That said, the difference was just five penalty yards, which does make me question my methodology. Unfortunately I neither have the time, nor the desire to do this again.
Effectively, the correct linemen were chosen, and the Pro Bowl formula probably doesn't need any adjustment.
(EDIT: Actually I just re-read this and I know exactly what the issue is. I used Yards per Attempt, but calculated everything else per play, so those penalty yards should probably have a bigger impact because yards per play will be lower than AY/A; No time to fix it now, but I would estimate that the outcome is likely similar anyway, except that Remi might actually drop out of the top 3 NSFC linemen as I originally suspected -- that was my motivation for the article, funnily enough. Wanted to reference it in the next part of Finding Leilani. Ah well)
Namely, penalties, and how that affects the average net yards per play that each lineman is involved in.
First we need to lay some ground work. I don't want to analyse every lineman for this, so I'm going to impose reasonable cutoffs to try and isolate a top ten.
My criteria are as follows:
Minimum 100 pancakes,
Either more than 1 pancake every ten plays, or fewer than 2 sacks allowed.
My logic being that this should give me offensive linemen with scores around 800 or better according to the original Pro Bowl formula. Considering that, at a glance, the best OL each season score somewhere in the region of 1100-1300 (which is around 120-130 pancakes, and 0-1 sacks allowed), on roughly 1200 plays, this seems like a reasonable cutoff point. As far as I can tell, only two players were not in my list who scored over 800, for what it's worth: Raya Ho'opa'i and Pan Cakes.
I was left with a list of nine.
The other bit of groundwork we need to do is figure out how many yards per play the average ISFL offense accumulated. Total number of plays across all quarterbacks -- and thus, a reasonable assumption for the total number of plays in the league this past season -- is 15,984. Total run yards plus total passing yards is total yardage for the league. Divided by our number of plays, we get a figure of a little over 5.1. Cool.
Now back to our offensive linemen. To really know whether the right guys got the call, we established that we need to consider penalties; which as far as I know, are not included in total yardage per player. The total number of penalties committed by all offensive players in the league -- which admittedly may not be an accurate figure, since sometimes a penalty isn't related to one player; but we work with what we have -- is 394, for a total of 3,168 yards. This works out to around 0.2 penalty yards per play (again using our previous measure of 15,984 plays). Applying a loss of 0.2 yards to our average yards per play would give us an average net yards per play of 4.9; we can use that to compare each lineman against the average.
Assuming every play an offensive lineman is involved in yields 5 yards (because rounding is easier), we can see that a player with more penalties will yield fewer yards per play. This does not bode well for Blacksmith Andre or Remi Musgrave-Smythe...
However, not all offenses are equal. Lets compare the estimated yards per play for their teams. We actually have this in the stats sheet, in the form of AY/A (Adjusted Yards per Attempt) on the Quarterbacks tab.
Some of you are pointing out that this isn't fair because the AY/A value depends on the quality of the offense. True. But we're not going to look at raw values; we're going to see how much that value changes due to the direct involvement of each lineman on an average play for that offense.
Since I can't specify exactly which plays each lineman was involved in, we're going to assume every lineman was involved in every offensive play their team had -- thus we are only using the number of plays by each quarterback as the base here. I'm pretty sure the actual numbers for the offensive linemen include special teams etc, but we're ignoring that for the purposes of this analysis.
Now let's apply these as a score to the initial score values as produced by the pro bowl formula: (pancakes * 10) - (sacks allowed * 100)
So let's say 5, for the leaguewide average offensive yards per play, multiplied by (1-NegativeRatio), multiplied by number of plays. That gives us an estimate of total yards gained with each lineman in the "average" league offense. Then let's scale that to the pro bowl formula. Considering that there are roughly 0.3 pancakes per play (5,564 total pancakes on 15,984 plays), and they're worth 10 points each, lets scale yardage to be similarly valuable based on how often it happens. We've already estimated roughly 5 yards per play, so to keep the same ratio, we need to say (10/(5/0.3)).
To quickly explain this: 5/0.3 compares the frequencies of each event; turns out that yards are 16 2/3 times more common than pancakes. So then we divide those ten points (per pancake) by that 16 2/3 to get how many points a single offensive yard should be worth if we assume pancakes and yards are equally valuable
(side note: they're not, but let's not get into that; pancakes are probably worth more than a single yard on average, but it's not really possible to calculate this. As a comparison point though, a sack is probably worth an average of negative six yards or thereabouts, so that tallies with our 0.6 pts per yard value at least).
Anyway, that gives us a value of 0.6 points per offensive yard.
So our yardage adjustment formula is: (5 * (1 - PenaltyYardRatio) * NumberOfPlays) * 0.6
If we plug that into our pro bowl scoring formula, we get the following final ranking:
Now, the ten linemen who made the Pro Bowl were:
ASFC: Donatello McTurtle, Beeg Beeg Yoshi Jr., Fortified Fridge, Blacksmith Andre, and Brandon Mason
NSFC: Yummy HotDogPie, Troy Barnes, Dusty Wilson, Bengal Tigerheart, and Remi Musgrave-Smythe
We can disregard the four interior guys (McTurtle, Yoshi Jr, HotDogPie, and Barnes) due to how sim stats work, and the fact I didn't actually separate guards/centers from tackles when doing my calculations.
Of the remaining names, all six ranked in the top nine I identified earlier. When splitting by conference, the top three in the ASFC were all selected, though Swantavius Payne may have had a slight case for selection over Brandon Mason by virtue of costing his team fewer yards via penalties.
That said, the difference was just five penalty yards, which does make me question my methodology. Unfortunately I neither have the time, nor the desire to do this again.
Effectively, the correct linemen were chosen, and the Pro Bowl formula probably doesn't need any adjustment.
(EDIT: Actually I just re-read this and I know exactly what the issue is. I used Yards per Attempt, but calculated everything else per play, so those penalty yards should probably have a bigger impact because yards per play will be lower than AY/A; No time to fix it now, but I would estimate that the outcome is likely similar anyway, except that Remi might actually drop out of the top 3 NSFC linemen as I originally suspected -- that was my motivation for the article, funnily enough. Wanted to reference it in the next part of Finding Leilani. Ah well)
I impersonate a programmer for a living
Father of the League Wiki • Friendly Neighbourhood Angry Black Guy™ • NOT British
Originator of the Sim League Cinematic Universe (SLCU)
Super capitalists are parasites. Fite me.
Alternatively, if you agree, you can support a grassroots movement dedicated to educating and organising the working class by buying a digital newspaper subscription. Your support would be greatly appreciated.